The author of Empire Express and Sitting in Darkness, which received a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award, David Haward Bain here depicts an unusual episode in American exploration, occurring at the historical moment between the war with Mexico and the Civil War. U.S. Navy Lieutenant William Francis Lynch, a man whose career had stalled, whose marriage had ended, and whose daughter had been suddenly lost to an epidemic, led an 1848 expedition to the Dead Sea, hoping to resolve ancient, often mythical questions about its true nature. Contending with Turkish Ottoman forces and hostile Bedouins, the team returned with maps, charts, and findings that are still valid today.